Definitions from the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
•Peculiar- Special… Odd, weird
•Special- Uncommon, noteworthy
•Weird- Unearthly, mysterious
Gosh, I love definitions. They make me better. Truly. Mis-definitions cause great harm, to others and myself. True story. Over and over and over and over and over. Ugh. Smh
So lately I’ve been told I’m not being appropo, aka inappropriate. Been a good 6 weeks of not appropriate. Gosh this shames me. It all started in June at the Quality Living Center in Saegertown PA, a personal care home. A PCA, personal care assistant named Vanessa, friended me on Facebook. This alone was inappropriate. Then she gave me her phone number and we texted. More inappropriateness disguised as clean and innocent fun. She is early 20’s and I’m mid 40’s. A clear mismatch. She could be my daughter for goodness sake.
I’m too unstable. Too unwell. Too sick, but not too weak. See the Twitter hashtag #sicknotweak. I’ve been building mess after mess since age 5 when I got Scarlet Fever. This changed my life. Massively.
Obsessions- intruding thoughts and emotions of distress. And compulsions- frantic efforts to feel better, started happening after the fever. Much like OCD, but my compulsions are atypical. I don’t care to check if the door’s locked, if I left the oven on, or to wash my hands 777 times. Here’s what does concern me- feeling and thinking I’m not okay and doing stupid things to try to be okay. True story. These feelings and thoughts often permeate me. Thus making me a mess on the inside. And that inner mess causes outer messes, both for me and those close to me. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Yuck.
Other junk came to my life after 5. I began to feel like a stranger. So then I acted out being strange and weird. I now needed a special way to have my hair washed, and was too afraid of bowel movements. So afraid I’d hurt myself to stop bowel movements. Then in 1985, at 13, I almost jumped out of a moving car my mom was driving. She was super mad, and that stopped me.
A year later, I was truly suicidal and got hospitalized for the first time. At 14 I was one of the youngest on the psych ward. I made a few friends though. Knowing everyone there was sick like me was freeing. I discharged after about a week.
Going back to school was a no go though. I was terrified. Not only suspected I didn’t fit in, I flat out knew it. Excessive truancy led to me getting a doctor’s excuse- social phobia was the diagnosis and was so true. The excuse meant the pressure to attend was over.
The new pressure was dealing with massive time on my hands and the massive boredom that accompanied it. I became a recluse. Afraid to leave the house, believing many would ridicule me. My poor parents had no idea what to do. 7th and 8th grades a blur. 9th grade the worst, attending only one day. Yet I was always passed.
For 10th grade my mom orchestrated a move to a new town and thus new school. It was in Warren Ohio at the Warren Christian School. It got off to a good start. I made friends, and had good grades. Things thickened when I went out for and made the basketball team. All of a sudden my life was jam packed. The season was long and took a toll on me. I needed so much sleep after and was depressed. Classic burnout. Also classic bipolar. Sure enough depression sat in.
After weeks of mostly absence from school, and weeks of my parents arguing about me, I asked for what would be my second psychiatric hospitalization. This time my dad had great benefits and I got to go to the Cleveland Clinic. They had a great adolescent program.
I would spend close to 4 weeks there. I made it all the way up to their highest level, level 4. To get that I not only had to be good but also take a leadership role amongst my peers. I can’t tell you how proud my dad was of me. And he had been so worried about me missing school. This hospitalization gave me the strength to finish my tenth grade.
In 11th grade I started a new program at a new school called Severe Behavior Handicap. The format, staying with one classroom with one teacher and kids that had problems too, allowed me to graduate. This was my 9th school. Quite the ride.
To Enlighten and Encourage 